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It's their job to do what they're told. If the city government decided Bike Crime was a top priority, cops got promotions based on how many bikes they recaptur

It's their job to do what they're told. If the city government decided Bike Crime was a top priority, cops got promotions based on how many bikes they recaptured, etc. then presumably they would be more active. Conversely, when the government decides it doesn't want a law enforced it's very easy to make that clear. Laws are an excuse to be able to target kinds of activity the government wants to target at the time; it's more "laws enabling cops" than "cops enforcing laws". That's why drug laws are so handy; all you have to do is say "I smelled marijuana" and you get to throw in jail whichever problem population you're targeting at the moment.

archgoon 11y ago
Which is why the "Batman solution" as described in the article may actually be the best way of dealing with this problem. Individual citizens who care about the problem can investigate the issue, and once they've gotten the meetup setup, the police can be called in to complete the arrest. This way, the community are the ones initiating police action, rather than the police themselves (which, as you point out, bad incentives can then result in an unhealthy relationship between the community and police).
- alkonaut 11y ago
  Exactly - and tracking down stolen bikes online is time consuming and thus expensive work that is better done by volonteers than by police. That money can be spent on other activities. The problem is that it is probably rare that police is even willing to spend 30 minutes on traveling to a known location for a stolen bike. Seattle (maybe the US in general I don't know) seems like a good place in this regard if he isn't laughed at when trying to get a police officer to come talk to a bike thief.
  - BobCat 11y ago
    Nonsense. Putting one bike thief in prison can save the public hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. He steals a $1k bike every other day = $182k/yr So even if a cop only tracked down 1 thief per month, he's paying his own salary back many times.
scurvy 11y ago
So what exactly is the priority of San Francisco, it's DA, and police department? I ask because I haven't been able to figure that out in 20 years of living here. From what I can tell, the police are good people, but the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws passed by previous generations.
- fiatmoney 11y ago
  "...the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws..." I mean, it sure fits the evidence. No one has an interest in "enforcing laws", they're tools to exert the power they wish to exert. In SF, I guess that's balancing property values that give you the cash to run further political campaigns with the social agenda shit that they think gets votes. Police don't really have independent priorities beyond "paychecks & cool shit with minimal accountability" (in fairness, basically the same priorities as any other job, especially government jobs). They are mostly the penultimate shelf on which shit, rolling downhill, rests (the public gets to be the final one).

archgoon 11y ago

Which is why the "Batman solution" as described in the article may actually be the best way of dealing with this problem. Individual citizens who care about the problem can investigate the issue, and once they've gotten the meetup setup, the police can be called in to complete the arrest. This way, the community are the ones initiating police action, rather than the police themselves (which, as you point out, bad incentives can then result in an unhealthy relationship between the community and police).

alkonaut 11y ago
Exactly - and tracking down stolen bikes online is time consuming and thus expensive work that is better done by volonteers than by police. That money can be spent on other activities. The problem is that it is probably rare that police is even willing to spend 30 minutes on traveling to a known location for a stolen bike. Seattle (maybe the US in general I don't know) seems like a good place in this regard if he isn't laughed at when trying to get a police officer to come talk to a bike thief.
- BobCat 11y ago
  Nonsense. Putting one bike thief in prison can save the public hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. He steals a $1k bike every other day = $182k/yr So even if a cop only tracked down 1 thief per month, he's paying his own salary back many times.

scurvy 11y ago

So what exactly is the priority of San Francisco, it's DA, and police department? I ask because I haven't been able to figure that out in 20 years of living here. From what I can tell, the police are good people, but the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws passed by previous generations.

fiatmoney 11y ago
"...the DA's are generally useless and are only interested in pushing an alternative social agenda as opposed to enforcing the laws..." I mean, it sure fits the evidence. No one has an interest in "enforcing laws", they're tools to exert the power they wish to exert. In SF, I guess that's balancing property values that give you the cash to run further political campaigns with the social agenda shit that they think gets votes. Police don't really have independent priorities beyond "paychecks & cool shit with minimal accountability" (in fairness, basically the same priorities as any other job, especially government jobs). They are mostly the penultimate shelf on which shit, rolling downhill, rests (the public gets to be the final one).